Understanding online violence against women and nonbinary journalists

Where to start

For journalists:

• The Coalition Against Online Violence offers an online violence response hub that offers immediate support for a variety of scenarios including doxxing, problems with online accounts and receiving online abuse, as well as ways to prepare for online attacks.
• IWMF offers multilingual training for journalists, including courses on knowing your trolls and online privacy.

For newsrooms:

• The IWMF’s News Safety Cohort is a new opportunity to help international newsrooms create policies for protecting journalists online. The IWMF provides safety training for newsrooms and journalism associations that are tailored to journalists’ holistic needs. Building on that existing training model, this new international support network will receive customized training in addition to peer networking, access to new resources and opportunities for 1:1 consultations.
• This IWMF report examines the professional dangers of being a woman journalist and offers recommendations newsrooms can take to better support freedom of expression and the work of women journalists and media workers worldwide.
• The Coalition Against Online Violence also has resources for newsroom leaders who need help protecting their journalists or implementing preventative steps against online violence.

What others are doing

• The San Francisco Chronicle altered its safety strategy and protocols to address online violence.
• The Seattle Times created a clear online abuse policy to report incidents and a plan to respond. Check out their resulting set of guidelines here.